(original here)

Note: Been reading this serialized long story/novella? Please support a full-time writer. Paypal to vanderworld at hotmail.com—much appreciated! Donations above $21 will entitle you to a free copy of initial anthology or stand-alone book appearance.

Living on a far-distant planet, Doctor Mormeck works for strange beings that might or might not be angels by conducting surveillance across a hundred thousand alt-Earths. Complicating things are a transdimensional race of intelligent komodos wreaking chaos throughout the worlds. When an avatar of Mormeck is sent to a war-torn winter city to investigate a mysterious Presence, the doctor will become embroiled an ever-widening conflict.

Archive is here, Journals of Mormeck, and first entry is here.

They were the remnants of a matriarchal flesh-and-blood race of six-legged amphibious carnivores from a planet with a name that sounded like “Rastz”. It issued from their mouths like a reverent and mournful hiss. Now in exile, they called themselves a word that meant the same as “Remnant” in English, but more defiant. Like a cross between “survivor” and “I survived because I danced on your corpse and spit on your grave.”

The Remnant were one of those odd peoples who, despite the presence of a solar system brimming with habitable planets, turned inward instead. They developed intricate robotics and a crude system of cross-dimensional travel long before they thought of space flight. The Remnant wished to explore the universes contained with Rastz, and they sent forth emissaries to explore.

At first, they found every delight and torment possible: versions of their world more peaceful and more advanced than theirs, versions decimated by battles for last scraps of protein on otherwise exhausted continents and seas bare of animal life, all of it dotted with the burning fires of failed city-states gouging the earth for the last fossil fuels. They came to know the full measure of echoes…

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(Short DIY vid shot by guest writer Ekaterina Sedia)

I’ll have much more info and news from this year’s SW teen writing camp, including the reveal of next year’s guest writers, but for now here’s a short informal video shot by guest writer Ekaterina Sedia of some of the students from Shared Worlds browsing for their free books.

Shared Worlds is located at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Publishers who sent free books this year included HarperVoyager, Tor, Pyr, Tachyon, White Wolf, Penguin (Firebird), Weird Tales, Angry Robot, Small Beer, Del Rey, Bull Spec, and Orbit.

SW is partially sponsored by a grant from Amazon.com. The camp was founded by Jeremy LC Jones and I serve as assistant director. The full writer/editor staff for 2011 included me, Ann VanderMeer, Nnedi Okorafor, Ekaterina Sedia, Will Hindmarch, Rob Rhodes, Jeremy Jones, and Minister Faust.

In case anyone was wondering, Cheeky Frawg will be releasing ODD?, our new antho of reprints and originals in October. The ultra-talented Gregory Norman Bossert—great writer and visual artist—has been working on the short film to accompany the release. It features an original song by Danny Fontaine based on lyrics I wrote (and he added to). The images are based on Jeremy Zerfoss‘s conceptualization of Myster Odd for the e-book’s cover:

Here are a few more stills from the animated film, which is shaping up beautifully…

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(No Jake von Slatt artifact was harmed during the events described in this blog post.)

Ever since Ann and I returned from the Carolinas with Jake von Slatt’s Bassington & Smith Brain, featured in the The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities it’s been nothing but trouble. Our cats will have nothing to do with it. It emits strange sounds and odors in the middle of the night. Flashes of electricity have appeared under the bell jar, appearing to reveal rips in the very fabric of space and time.

Even worse, the ongoing conflict between Moomins and Totoros previously detailed in this post has been brought into the house because of the presence of the Bassington & Smith Brain. It has quickly become the flashpoint for an ongoing, smoldering battle…as this series of still photographs demonstrates…

The Moomins and what temporary allies they could find within the house chose the high ground within the psychotronic field of the Jake von Slatt Bassington & Smith Brain, the emanations temporarily hiding their presence from the adorable enemy.

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(Gosh, that’s a lot of komodos. Are they having a scrum?)

Note: Been reading this serialized long story/novella? Please support a full-time writer. Paypal to vanderworld at hotmail.com—much appreciated! Donations above $21 will entitle you to a free copy of initial anthology or stand-alone book appearance.

Living on a far-distant planet, Doctor Mormeck works for strange beings that might or might not be angels by conducting surveillance across a hundred thousand alt-Earths. Complicating things are a transdimensional race of intelligent komodos wreaking chaos throughout the worlds. When an avatar of Mormeck is sent to a war-torn winter city to investigate a mysterious Presence, the doctor will become embroiled an ever-widening conflict.

Archive is here, Journals of Mormeck, and first entry is here.

Some of you may have noticed that The Journals of Doctor Mormeck aren’t moving very quickly. Well, rest assured, they’re getting written in my head and just as soon as we turn in the final front and end matter for our mammoth The Weird antho, I’ll get right back to it. I’ve got scads and scads of notes for scenes, but the Avatar thread requires more thought than the Mountain Mormeck thread and the next scene requires me to spend some time visualizing (diving into some architecture books for that). So, until next week I’ll thank you for your donations—very much appreciated and needed—and leave you with some teasers…

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(Ann bought me the sea slime book as a b-day present…)

During two readings at the Hub City Bookstore in Spartanburg, the Shared Worlds teen writing camp students bought a ton of books—just like last year, when Hub had only been open a few weeks. It’s just an amazingly good bookstore, mostly because the staff does such a great job of selecting the right books. When I walk in there it’s almost as if they’ve been reading my mind.

And now comes the news via Publishers Weekly that they’ve outstripped projected first-year sales by quite a sum. Nice job. Such a great place for a reading, too, and such a great resource for the students.

So the students weren’t the only ones to come away with a book haul. Here’s what I bought, with a few books thrown in that came from the Blue Bicycle in Charleston.

Which ones should I read first? Which have you read and recommend?

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(At night, scribbling furiously on pieces of paper, in front of this fountain.)

“The Journals of Doctor Mormeck” serial fiction will continue on my blog by tomorrow. As you might expect, teaching at the Shared Worlds SF/F teen writing camp—and also helping manage things—takes a lot out of you. So I didn’t do much writing while there.

However, the trip back through Raleigh-Durham, Charleston, and Savannah proved that Doctor Mormeck is alive in my mind. It’s the kind of story where everything you encounter can be transformed. That’s true of many different kinds of fictions, but doubly true for Mormeck since it involves parallel universes. I entered this kind of state of reverie in which everything around me was being converted and reimagined as part of a parallel universe, even the fountains above. Part of it is the sensory overload of encountering so much cool real-world stuff all at once, part of it was being away from Mormeck for about two weeks and lots of material suddenly coming to the surface all at once. But basically I spent a great deal of time just wandering aimlessly at night, being fed scraps of paper to write on by my wife and our friend S.J. Chambers.

A mosquito smashing into my eye like a tiny electric shock not once but twice. An encounter with an odd building and a grim lighthouse. All of these things sparked all kinds of ideas. It’s exciting to me because I’m truly post-Ambergris now.

So it’s safe to say that Mormeck is alive and well in my imagination—even more so than before Shared Worlds. Some of it is making my jaw drop in anticipation of writing it, and as always I’m mystified as to where all of this stuff comes from, but I try not to question it but just get it all down and worry about editing and control later. There are marvels and wonders ahead, along with hearbreak and despair…as always.